The Masters - A Field Report

[Dunlop_White]

You're right. Initially, there was rough, but I must say that there was very little of it, and it was very peripheral to play. Just guessing, but it looks like the fairways were like 80 - 90 yards wide, and I don't see rough close to any green. The rough that's there in the aerial is so far out of play, and there's obviously no way to tell how tall or penal it is, though it certainly doesn't look fescue height.

[Jason Topp]

Is it possible to have the 1932 aerial posted?

[BCrosby]

Dunlop -

For a course that was supposed to be playing firm and fast, I was there and saw very little roll. Part of it is launch angles. But a bigger part of it is different definitions of f & f.

The turf I saw was well watered. Not what Linc Rhoden would consider f & f. Not even close. If you sat on the grass without a blanket, the back of your pants got wet. That's not very dry. And we were sitting on high spots. Even on the downhill slopes on 2, 9 and 10 there was relatively little roll.

I'm beginning to think that these guys are so used to playing in swampy bogs that anything less than a swampy bog is considered firm and fast. I just didn't get what people were saying Friday night when they said the course was playing firm. I didn't see it that way.

As for conservative play and bunched results, I am running some TEP Values now. I think your (and my) instincts are basically right. There were fewer birdies (even on birdiable holes like 13 and 15) and many more "other" numbers. (Curiously, it looks like the 2nd played this year much like the 13th played in previous years. I don't know why that would be.)

Pat -

ANGC has always had some sort of rough. What people found so remarkable about it was how irrelevant it was/is on a major championship course.

The rough this year was cut low and was thin, consistent with prior years. It had little effect on play in the tournament and was, essentially, a non-factor.

The trees were another matter.

Bob

[redanman]

Thanks for the report in the first post, Bob.   I just finally got around to reading this, but I've been posting the same thoughts on the "ANGC Changes, Good or Bad" thread.  It looks as though an update just by TV was pretty accurate after all.  

It apparently was in person as bad as it looked on TV.

Is 2006 the beginning of the end of The Augusta National Golf Club or is it merely the end, period?  

Never before have the changes been so unattractive, counterintuitive, counterproductive agronomically, spectator-unfriendly, strategy unfriendly, club and pro player unfriendly and unless you go to the lengths that they (And few others can) afford to do simply grass (and thereby golf unfriendly?

Perhaps we will one day look back and say:
Masters Week 2006, a very sad time in the history of golf and grass.

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